Washington Real Estate Investment Trust displays this illustrated historical timeline at corporate meetings, annual shareholder meeting, and other trade shows during its 50th anniversary year. It’s all part of a comprehensive package FCI designed to help the company celebrate this important milestone. Other elements included a special 50th anniversary logo, stationery, trade ads, and a website.
Link to WRIT history site.      Link to www.writ.com

With an “innovative business network” of ten companies, RLJ Companies needed a website that focuses the viewer’s attention and quickly identifies all ten companies. We designed a brief Flash introduction on RLJ’s home page, then added simple navigation and clear organization to enable readers to find the information they need efficiently.  Link to www.rljcompanies.com

When the National Association of Realtors asked us help them communicate about the innovative programs it provides to Realtors, we saw that the information would need to be presented creatively to be noticed. Our compact booklet uses 48 pages of colorful photos and bold headlines to highlight a decade of NAR’s support for its members.

Making environmentally friendly paper choices can be a complicated business. It means taking into account not only the paper quality and cost, but also the level of recycled content, chlorine content, even how much energy was used in shipping the paper from the mill to the printer. And, increasingly, it involves whether sustainable forestry practices were used in the paper’s production. Given that, we rely heavily on printers and paper suppliers with credible green certifications to help our clients make informed paper choices.

Among certification programs, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is considered the gold standard. There are now upwards of 1,000 FSC-certified printers around the United States. And, ultimately, it’s the printer that applies the FSC logo, which tells your audience you’ve employed sustainable printing practices.

Green Paper Choices
Greening your paper choices involves just that—making choices. At one extreme, you can use FSC-certified chlorine-free paper that is made from 100% post-consumer waste (PCW)—that is, recycled content. At the other extreme, you can do nothing. But there are options in between, including FSC-certified papers with lower percentages of PCW content or recycled papers that are not FSC-certified. It all depends on your level of commitment and your budget. Just opting to use recycled paper represents an important first step. The good news: High-quality recycled papers are more available than ever before, so your final piece doesn’t have to look like it was printed on the back side of a grocery bag.

What Is FSC?
The FSC certifies sustainable forestry practices—and, further up the supply chain, the printers, paper manufacturers and pulp suppliers that use products from FSC-certified forests—as part of a broad environmental initiative to protect the nation’s forest and promote better forestry management. There are other certifying agencies, including the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), an industry-sponsored organization with its own set of forestry management standards. Hard-core environmentalists maintain that, as an independent organization, FSC is the more credible of the two certifications.

The FSC medallion tells readers that your piece was produced using sustainable practices—and to what degree.

DESIGNED BY FCI: CASE IN POINT

Global Environment Fund
Annual Review

For the 32-page Global Environment Fund’s 2007–2008 Annual Review, we used an FSC-certified printer, a New Leaf Paper® made with 100% post-consumer waste and processed chlorine-free, and vegetable-based inks. New Leaf Paper® provided an “Eco-Audit” detailing the environmental savings, which appeared on the inside back cover along with the FSC stamp of approval.

Why Recycled Content Matters
Each ton of recycled fiber that displaces a ton of virgin fiber used in coated groundwood paper (stock used in magazines):
• Reduces total energy consumption by 27%
• Reduces net greenhouse gas emissions by 28%
• Reduces wastewater by 33%, solid waste 54%, and wood use 100%.

Source: The Environmental Paper Network (based on research by the Alliance for Environmental Innovation) at www.environmentalpaper.org/PAPER-statistics.html

Explore
Follow these links to find out more:
Forest Stewardship Council www.fscus.org/paper/
AIGA Center for Sustainable Design sustainability.aiga.org/sus_paper
Chlorine Free Products Association www.chlorinefreeproducts.org/marks.htm
Paper Task Force www.edf.org/article.cfm?contentid=1689
New Leaf Paper newleafpaper.com
Mohawk Paper mohawkpaper.com
Neenah Paper www.neenahpaper.com